Lufthansa’s Pilots Still Aren’t Happy, Hint at Even More Strikes

Richard Weiss, Bloomberg

- Sep 25, 2014 10:00 pm

Skift Take

We are all for fair pay and labor rights (don’t get us started on Norwegian) we assert that Lufthansa and Air France pilots’ intransigence encourages the boardrooms to fight rather than build smarter brands.

— Jason Clampet

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Deutsche Lufthansa AG, which has suffered a spate of pilot strikes this year, faces more walkouts after a union representing cockpit staff said a fresh round of talks about early retirement benefits produced no results.

Negotiations have failed and the company and passengers should expect additional strikes to be announced with immediate effect, Vereinigung Cockpit said in a statement today. The union had called off their last attempt to walk out last week after Lufthansa had shared its latest proposal with all pilots.

“Lufthansa’s management increased its already massive demands,” the union said in the statement. “Management does not act solution-oriented, but escalated the conflict.”

The union comment reflects Chief Executive Carsten Spohr’s claim to stand his ground in the spat, as he seeks to weigh short-term burdens from strikes against the long-term perspectives for the company. Cologne, Germany-based Lufthansa has suffered a series of one- and three-day strikes this year in the dispute about retirement terms.

Labor strife is also disrupting service at Paris-based rival Air France, which has been the target of a walkout by pilots for the past 10 days. Air France proposed yesterday to immediately drop a low-cost subsidiary outside its French and Dutch home bases, and pilots are now preparing a response.

To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Weiss in Frankfurt at rweiss5@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net

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